eagle- you are sort of comparing apples to oranges. There is a difference between the two areas you are combining. Yes you can add a few fish as soon as you add the bottled bacteria. But that does not mean you can fully stock the tank. And that is what folks are told in general.
The quote that rankled you starts out with somebody asking how many fish can I add after I dose. Now nowhere on the site, until that question, has the issue of how big a bio-load can I add immediately, which is really what the question is asking. As we all know one may be able to add a dozen full grown cardinal tetras to a tank fine but not be able to add one full grown oscar.
The answer to that question will vary. Lets say you, daize and I all have the same size tanks and we dose the same amount of the bacteria. But my tank has live plants and a neutral pH, yours is for African cichlid tank with a pH in the low 8s and daize loves dwarf puffers so has a a few live plants and will stock very few fish and her pH is between ours. Now if we ask the same question- how many fish can we stock after adding the bacteria, the answer better dang well be different for each of us. My plants will help control nitrogen, so I can add more than if unplanted. Yours has no plants and even though the higher pH may make bacteria multiply a bit faster, that pH will make any ammonia more toxic in your tank, so you should stock more lightly than normally. Finally. daize will be getting only a few fish, and she is smart enough to be doing basically a species tank where too many puffers = they kill each other, so she can likely fully stock. So you can see, the answer is not so simple. But, I would bet that there is nowhere on Dr. Tim's site where it says you can fully stock any tank right after dosing the product.
And there is nothing wrong in either of the two claims you posted, but I am happy to investigate them one at a time and I will even use daize's recent experience for support:
Eliminates new tank syndrome- This refers to ammonia and nitrite levels rising to dangerous levels- i.e. they seriously harm or kill fish, daize's numbers bear this out. She dosed to 3 ppm, on the high side. He levels were barely harmful to hardy fish for a day or two. Had she dosed to the 2 ppm level her numbers would have been safe enough to put fish in all along. Using the bacteria keeps the tank at safe levels for a short time for a few fish Put in the bottled bacteria and add a few fish and you will do just fine. So this claim is true.
Instantly creates a bio filter- to the extent the proper bacteria are in the tank and go to work right away, this is true. If you want to insist that creating a bio-filter means building up all the types of bacteria, not only the nitrifyers, and that they be well ensconced in a bio-film, then it is false.
Removes toxic ammonia and nitrite, naturally- do we really need to discus this at all?
No sulfur or other offensive odors- do we really need to discus this at all?
No wait needed- refer to points one and two above. Do things properly, and you can begin to stock lightly right away. The fish will be subject to some low level ammonia and nitrite for a very brief time that does not cause permanent harm or damage to the fish. And for sure ammonia and nitrite levels will neither get as high, nor last as long as they would in a fish in cycle with no jump start, either bottled or media transferred.
100% natural- I do not think they have invented nanobot bacteria yet.
I see no problem with most of the claims being made on Dr Tim's site. In fact I see plenty of caveats. They warn about exposing the bottle to cold or heat, they warn about how long it will normally remain useful, they warn that nothing is written in stone by saying things like "in 3-5 days", or if the directions are followed. And yes there is also a certain amount of spin in it all, but that is to be expected from all product makers.
But lets go back to daize and her results. She is close to cycled- so what if is about 15 days instead of 7 from that point of view? Given her previous tries, this one is a real winner. And then breeze through the Your New freshwater Tank forum and read all the cycling threads. How many of them have ammonia never getting much above 1.0 or so and then have nitrites peak at about .50 so fast? I bet a lot of the thread starters would have been pleased to get daize's recent results. And lets not forget, had she not paused between the first two doses, it may have gone fastert?
The problem that causes most of the failures when folks use viable bottled bacteria is operator error. The same is true for most fishless cycles that do not use a bottled starter. There is biology and chemistry at work here, but most people don't want to hear about it. They want it simple and easy and thus screw up by not doing things right or else they over analyze and then react by doing something when what they really should do is nothing. I mean what do we expect any new fish keeper will do with their very first test kits? They will test the heck out of everything. And then not really understanding whats going on, they will blindly react to the readings. And the reason much of this happens is because of what they read or are told online.
What I really want to hear is how those folks who claim bottled bacteria can not and does not work explain what got daize's tank virtually cycled in 15 days? How do they explain it in light of all her previous tries? I can understand how those people who either messed it up or who might have gotten a bad bottle can believe the product doesn't work and will say so. So that explains a lot of the reported failures many folks like to quote when they say the products are snake oil. But then what is the explanation for all those folks who report the product worked? I am sure daize will say Dr Tims got her tank cycled, why would she say that if it wasn't true? How do the naysayers explain the reports of successful results?
daize- Start
picking
out
fish
/onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1574-6941.2006.00170.x/full
